Trying not to get hacked about getting hacked

(By Erik)

Today was a weird day — weird in a bad way.

A few days earlier I wrote a story for the Chronicle’s Web site about the tragic death of a missionary in the West African country of Benin — Cyndi Chowning. Cyndi and her husband, Richard, have been great sources. They’ve been doing a wonderful work among a group of people known as the Aja.

I added to the story the sad news of the death of longtime missionary and missions professor Dan Hardin. Dan and his wife, Joyce, have been great sources about the work in Asia and I’ve greatly valued their assistance.

Tamie Ross, our online editor, got the story on the site for me on Friday. Earlier today, e-mailed all of my international contacts and provided them with a link to the story.

About lunchtime here in Oklahoma someone hacked into the Chronicle’s Web site and replaced the text of my story with a profanity-laced declaration that basically read, “Ha ha, I hacked your site.”

That’s a kinder, gentler, paraphrase of what he wrote. I’m amazed that some people have the technical prowess to hack through multiple layers of security, yet can’t spell simple words. The hacker claimed that, instead of praying to the one true God, he was “preying to the metal gods.”

It’s praying to the metal gods. Preying is what you were doing to our Web site. If you’re going to go to the trouble of desecrating our site, at least do us the courtesy of a grammar check.

Anyway, this all happened just about at the same time that many of my contacts were opening their e-mail and following the link. Not good!

Our Web administrator restored our site to its previous state, although my story got lost in the shuffle and I can’t figure out how to get it back. So I may include it on this blog tomorrow.

In our Bible study tonight we talked about a man named Shimei. He was a relative of Saul, and as a result he had a longtime hatred of King David. When David was fleeing from his son, Absalom, Shemei followed alongside David and threw stones and cursed at him. (This is in 2 Samuel 16 or thereabout.)

Abishai, one of David’s men, wanted to kill Shimei, but David told him to stay his hand. “Let him curse, for the Lord has told him to,” David said. “It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today."

Later David returned to his throne, and Shimei begged his forgiveness. Again Abishai wanted to kill him, but David let him live. Still later, just before he died, David told his son, Solomon, to kill Shimei.

The story ends badly, but I think that — at least for a while — David did the right thing.

It’s very frustrating to me that the hacker chose my story — about the loss of two great missionaries — as a target for his prank.

But I forgive him, even though he’s unlikely to ever ask for my forgiveness.

(Incidentally, if you’re wondering who the “metal gods” are, I believe the pantheon includes Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Judas Priest and Jethro Tull — a controversial choice that only made it into this select group because in 1989 they won the first Grammy awarded in the category of ‘hard rock/heavy metal’ album, much to the dismay of fans of also-nominated Metallica. It's probably better if you don't ask me how I know all this.)